Revolver Practice
by Scarper Gallywest
Summary: Windows in the castle of the great detective's legend - a series of intriguing drabbles & adventurous anecdotes. Various PsOV;no slash, no fluff, no nonsense. Rating for possible later violence and Victorian grime.
1. Chapter 1

Five million hearts beat in the great cesspool of humanity called London. One of them hammers silently under a threadbare linen shirt clammy with nervous sweat, pressed between dark wallpaper dappled with gaslight and the thin back of a young man.

His footsteps fall softly on the carpet runner of the passageway. He has made it this far without rousing the house, crept in like a weasel snaking down the tunnels of a rabbit warren – through the kitchen door, into the dim hall, up the stairs , and now he crouches, panting, on the landing. The wood of the doorframe is slick beneath the fingers of his left hand, nimble fingers ever so gently prying the half-closed door open just a fraction of an inch more. The other hand, cool and steady, grips the handle of a glistening Moroccan dagger.

A breath of light and voices spills out of the crack; two men, one with a deep, mellow voice, and one giving a sardonic chuckle, continue unperturbed with their idle conversation. A wisp of cigarette smoke drifts into the hallway.

The youth outside leans forward to peer into the crack, and locks his sights on a section of the wall where a long, pacing shadow is passing back and forth. He inhales deeply and hurls his weapon into the room, where its flashing blade buries itself in the wall an inch from a gaunt silhouette that utters an exclamation of shock.

He swears softly.

Meanwhile, from inside the sitting room, the silhouette draws a revolver from the pocket of his dressing gown and addresses his companion with one eyebrow cocked.

"It appears we have company, Watson."


	2. Sketches of Spain

I am not yet at liberty to divulge the details of the case of grand theft that led Sherlock Holmes and I to the sunny port of Barcelona in the spring of '95, but the people and climate were so amicable that we agreed to remain in the city for a full week's holiday after its conclusion.

Together, we toured wineries and museums of art, and partook of the glorious fruits of Spanish opera. I passed the time studying with a few native doctors, by turns enlightening them with my modern British methods and amusing them with my atrocious Spanish; Holmes immersed himself in Moorish architecture and explored various aspects of local color.

On one memorable occasion my friend left our rented apartments midafternoon on an invitation from the chief of the city equivalent of Scotland Yard. Assuming the party wouldn't die down until well past midnight, I didn't bother to wait up for Holmes. But after a few cups of café fuerte and un poco de chocolate, I found myself utterly wide awake; and so it was that I sat reading in the sitting room when Holmes trailed exhaustedly in at half past five in the morning, looking distinctly and rather exotically dissolute. A gorgeous black eye was beginning to bloom on his pale face, a little darker than usual from exposure to the Spanish sun. His tie looked as though it had been hastily undone and reaffixed, and a bright red rose protruded crookedly from his lapel.

I frowned in vexation as the detective, limping a little and smelling faintly of sandalwood, collapsed onto a chair and gave a long, weary sigh.

"Did you win?" I asked drily.

"Uncontested," he answered, idly removing a scrap of red ribbon from his dark, ruffled hair.

"It must have been quite a fight."

"Tango contest. But Watson - "he plucked out the rose, which I noticed bore bite marks from a distinctive set of teeth with the left canine missing –

"…never accept a bet when more than marginally intoxicated."


	3. Hymn to the Goddess

So. It's been quite a while since I've written anything. Less than a three-year hiatus, but nonetheless rather shamefully long; I hope you enjoy a story in the old spirit, to welcome back the pair of hands on the green typewriter. Á votre santé.

She was perhaps the most exquisite woman I had ever seen.

Her skin seemed to glow with a cool lustre not unlike that of Michelangelo's David, or of any of the most beautiful of marble statues of Classical antiquity. She was pale as the sky before dawn, a goddess of ivory and pearl such as I had never seen among the celebrated beauties of London.

Her presence had at first taken us entirely by surprise; we had found her, trapped among barrels and crates in this decaying warehouse in the south of Venice, by the sight of one slender white hand, and it stretched still toward the blackened ceiling and its single dusty skylight as she held out the other to Sherlock Holmes and myself in a gesture of pitiable supplication. Her fragile feet were poised as if to run from us, and the pitch of her rounded shoulders suggested the tense hind limbs of a frightened doe.

She wore only a bolt of stiff cloth draped around her slender waist for covering; had I been able to make out her face, I imagine the virginal blush painted there would have drawn from me the same enraptured sigh that escaped my companion's lips as he took a tentative step toward this maiden ensnared by the soiled shadows.

"My dear girl," whispered Sherlock Holmes. "My dear Watson, at long last. Ariadne of Iolcus."

I, too, sighed with wonder. "A truly exquisite sculpture, Holmes. And to think she has been lost for so long."

"Yes," the detective murmured, his face losing its astonished glow and lapsing once more into its usual critical expression. "It's a pity she's missing her head."


End file.
